How to clean your virtual reality headset
We present a brief guide on the best practices to maintain the hygiene of your virtual reality glasses.
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised our awareness of how to clean and disinfect devices in our therapy, in order to protect and not transmit the disease to patients and colleagues.
The objective of this guide is to provide tips to minimize the risk of transmitting the virus, but they are also protocols that we recommend to perform on the daily basics to maintain the hygiene of virtual reality devices in your practice.
Remember that the VR glasses you use in your office can attract two types of dirt: macro dirt, which you can clearly perceive, such as oily secretions, makeup, sweat, dead skin cells; or micro dirt, which you cannot see or feel, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, among others. Keeping the headphones clean helps reduce the growth or the transfer of germs from one person to another.
VR Cleaning recommendations:
Depending on the virtual reality equipment you use, there are different cleaning options. Each manufacturer of virtual reality glasses offers detailed options on how to clean their products, however here we offer general tips that could be applied to most VR glasses.
Disposable pads
Many glasses are compatible with disposable Face Pads that are placed and adapted to the area that will be in contact with the patient’s face. These are made with an absorbent material, which retains wet and grease; and they are ideal when headphones are shared between patients.
At amazon you can find options, here are some we recommend:
Cleaning boxes
Cleanbox is a premium, and eco-friendly, smart tech hygiene solution for the decontamination of virtual, augmented and mixed reality headsets and other mass use hardware. Cleanbox is independently lab tested to kill 99.99% of bacteria, virus and fungi in one minute and can treat any number of hardware from 1 to 100 or more.
Alcohol wipes
If you do not have a sterilization cabinet, we recommend cleaning the equipment thoroughly before and after each use with a cloth impregnated in a product for disinfecting surfaces or alcohol wipes. (Make sure that the residue from the alcoholic or non-alcoholic wipes dries completely; it could cause skin sensitivity in some people.)
There are some disposable wipes on the market specially designed to clean virtual reality glasses, such as the VR Cover, which do not contain alcohol, but fulfill the function of eliminating all kinds of bacteria, are less abrasive, hypoallergenic and fragrance-free. These wipes come individually wrapped, so you don’t have to worry about them drying out. Plus they’re big enough, each piece can also be folded like a washcloth to clean even controllers.
Remove detachable parts and clean separately
If it is possible to remove any part of the headset from your glasses, such as the facial rubber, nose protector, or light-blocking protector, it may be useful to remove these parts so that you can clean better between all the fissures.
Microfiber cloth on the lenses
After disinfecting, we recommend cleaning the lens area with a dry microfiber cloth, in that way we will try to keep the vision sharp and optimize the user experience.
Put away after using
At the end of each day, try to keep your RV headphones in a place where no dust accumulates; You can use a compressed air spray every so often to remove the particles that accumulate between the corners and fissures.
Other recommendations:
- Ask your patients to clean their hands before putting on the kit with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol, and wait for them to dry thoroughly before getting in contact with the glasses.
- After each session, clean each surface that has been in contact with the patient, using alcohol wipes. This includes the chair, table, doorknobs, and controllers, etc.
- Remember that according to official health organizations the coronavirus (COVID-19) lives up to four hours in copper, up to one day in cardboard and up to three days in plastic and stainless steel. Quarantining the equipment is the easiest and simplest option for those who still do not receive a large number of patients after confinement, and can stop using the equipment with a few days in between.
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